Outage Planning Coordination (OPC) and Short-Term Adequacy (STA) are two of the five mandatory services provided by Regional Security Coordinators (RSCs) and Transmission System Operators (TSOs) for electricity under the European Commission Regulation establishing a guideline on electricity transmission system operation. They are aimed at increasing the operational security of Europe’s power system.

The OPC pan-European IT Tool, live since end of March 2020, allows five RSCs and 38 TSOs to coordinate outage planning on a weekly basis. Based on generation and demand forecast provided by all ENTSO-E Member TSOs, the STA pan-European IT tool, launched in May 2020, enables RSCs and TSOs to perform daily calculations identifying possible lack of adequacy for the week ahead.

The tools, built by a Unicorn and RTE International consortium, are based on prototypes developed by RSCs. The prototype of the OPC tool was elaborated by TSCNET while the STA tool is based on a prototype by CORESO. The tools leverage the ENTSO-E Communication and Connectivity Service Platform (ECCoSP); a dedicated platform for secure file exchange that could be used for other RSC services data exchanges in the future.

The delivery of these pan-European IT tools has required continuous engagement and work across the whole TSO community: from TSOs, RSCs and ENTSO-E.

Tahir Kapetanovic, Head of the Control Centre of APG, the Austrian TSO, and Chairman of the ENTSO-E System Operation Committee, commented: “Cross-border coordination and intensive cooperation of all national TSOs are the preconditions for a smooth functioning of the European power system. Jointly developed pan-European IT tools such as the OPC and STA tools, allow uniform norms and standards for network operation to be put into practice.”

Hereby two videos that will help you understand how OPC and STA pan-European IT tools work.

Find out more on the OPC and STA RSC services here.